Falling in Love on Paper

The NFL Draft is upon us and without fail teams, analysts and the media in general will fall in love with players who look good on paper. Not players who did well on the field or played in the biggest games but ones who jumped high or had a good shuttle time at the draft combine.

Let’s take one of the top quarterbacks in the draft, Blake Bortles. Bortles “looks” like an NFL QB. He fits the part. However the more important part, or logical part, was how he played at UCF. He played in 37 games at UCF throwing 56 touchdowns to just 19 interceptions. Those are pretty good numbers. So doesn’t that mean more than how high he can jump?

On another note, the blog AwfulAnnouncing.com had a great post about the absurdity of it all. Basically, one QB’s hands were too small while another’s were just fine. Funny thing, theirhands are the same size!

The draft is become more of a stock market. Players are companies and the teams are the investors. A players value can increase or decease on a daily basis while the teams look for, not only the best player, but also for the best value.

There is no solution for this. It is just a fact of life. People will continue to fall in love with a players “measurables” vs what they actually did on the field of play just like how some investors buy the hot stock vs the best value. Either way, it’s great theatre.